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I can only tell you who lost - the BBC Scotland moderator who might as well not have been there! An utter shambles of a "debate", where 99% of the audience had obviously already made up their minds and weren't in an way interested in what anyone else had to say. The glee in the ScotNat camp when Darling said Scotland couldn't be prevented from using the Pound was telling - the Nats weren't at all interested in any of the follow-on gotchas. As for the participants, it was a contest between two socialists as to who could better waste other people's money - in Salmond's case the same money several times over (must have been taking lessons from Gordo there). On an issue which stirs such passion North of the border you'd have though there would be some passion in the debate. But, Darling was clearly reading the script most of the time, whilst Salmond was transparently following instruction from his spin doctor coaches. When he walked away from the podium jaws dropped - until it became clear that it was a pre-planned, spin doctor inspired, ruse to "psychologically embrace" the questioner. I hope the fees for all that coaching on presentation are going into English pockets. Could the whole thing be a cunning plan by Tory Central Office to permanently eliminate fourth or fifty Labour MPs from Westminster? If so the plan was likely doomed from the moment they failed to secure the services of Scotsman Anthony Charles Lynton Blair to champion the No cause! From then on a dead sheep could top the poll for the No campaign - and likely will!

Look, you get a certain choice of the best of two (maybe more), and some terribly good chocolates thrown into the mix! Nice people the Flemings! Ironic that a country that can't make up its mind about anything at all is first home to the EU - predicated on the notion that everyone can make their collective mind up on absolutely everything!

...in Science and Technology? http://www.goodcountry.org/overall Now all we need to do is to focus on our poor score in "International Peace and Security" Tony!

Sympathies to the family, but "Dickie" is/was the lesser of the brothers I think. A loss to the British film industry to now be missing the chief luvvie, but - in later years at least - he was just a bit too PC for me to think of as entirely "genuine". With David you are left in no doubt that the person talking is the person inside, but with Richard there was always the puzzlement of where the divide between actor and private personality might be. That's not to minimise some of the good work he did. I though his portrayal of Christie was pretty good, but there's the tiny suspicion that he may have been drawing a bit on his own character in that part. Not one of the all-time greats, but often passably good, and will still be missed.

You've forgotten the nepotism! http://order-order.com/2013/09/13/list-of-shame-every-mp-who-employs-a-family-member/ But seriously, you are doing a wonderful job there Ian, and are worth every penny of every increase you vote yourself and your family! It's just a pity that you are the laughingstock of the laughingstock, and make everyone in Wansbeck look like the singular ignoramus you are! Next time you chose to press home one of your withering attacks on the Tories take the trouble to check which party appointed the damnable person you are targeting! You managed to lose the NUM virtually ALL their membership during your short tenure; so keep on applying those management skills to the local economy, and keep on blaming someone else! There still seem to be people who you can take-in, but remember the old adage.

The Directory is now active. Any member should be able to submit a link. If you have a problem please PM me or Brett. Don't worry about a category, we'll develop those on the fly. Please keep your links relevant to local people, and remember if you are promoting your own web-pages then it's netiquette (only good manners) to provide a prominent back link from them to Bedlington.co.uk.

Links Page software now agreed on - so, a few days hence... hopefully... Thanks to West Bedlington councillors, or Adam, or whoever (you know who you are), for the original idea.

Interesting John, thanks! Something might come out of this. I notice the Dennis Fancett Community Help Hub.mp3 seems to be far too short - only 30 seconds! Can we try another copy, or did someone this end screw up?

So... the very latest bogy is ISIL, IS, or whatever they are calling themselves this week. Come in al-Qaeda, your time is up! Our politicos have something else to protect us from at vast expense (note the warnings of IS terrorism spreading to UK streets); our security services can once again justify their shady dealings; and, our armament makers get a boost to their flagging share prices. There's one thing we aren't being told though: where does IS get its massive funding? It is very well organised, and some serious seed funding came from somewhere. IS didn't simply spring into existence from another dimension in the cosmos. Our senior politicos have certainly been told, but they choose not to pass on this crucial snippet of info. Of course the only way to a cure to (and prevent the reoccurrence of) a cancer is to clinically seek the source. If your only visible concern is to be treating the symptoms, and you steadfastly ignore the root cause - even any mention of a possible root cause! Then there's always the suspicion that you yourself might just have an interest in a "snake-oil" factory, or may be uncomfortably close to someone that does! These days we are very quick to apply economic sanctions to people we don't ordinarily get on with very well and simply suspect of dodgy dealings with "terrorism". Why is IS proving an exception to this?

Delusion #2: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11046740/Sir-Ian-Wood-15-years-of-oil-left-before-independent-Scotland-spending-cuts.html Not what Salmond wants to hear of course! And the truth he's trying to conceal about current production:

Robin Williams had 'serious money troubles' before his death

An major opportunity was missed in not converting the old Dr/A Pit line into a light-rail rapid shuttle service to The Market Place. It would have keep our "main" station operational too. Not a huge project, and would have gone a little way to undoing some of the wrongs of the past in not putting us on the main line as Stevenson envisaged. With a little station in the Market Place all the other proposed development, that has always stalled, would have followed on naturally. The synergy would have fed into the main rail project, and relieved commuter congestion on the road network. A complete lack of foresight and cohesive planning by local politicians I think.

MT doesn't need any apologists, she did what she had to do for the entire country! I don't have any problem with trades unions, they too do what they have to do. I do however have a problem with people who have highly selective memories, and people who demonise others, and particularly with people who feed subsequent generations half-truths. Scargill was not the trade union movement; or even the NUM; or even that part of the NUM he split! He isn't a demon either; or evil; or any of the silly mindless substitute-for-thought left-wing labels you would apply. He's actually a rather sad old guy who is still at odds with his own union, and thinks they (and the rest of the world) owe him a living. I don't take any delight at the NUM throwing him out of his subsidised flat - he's still living in his own dream world, and still way beyond any rational argument. I do sympathise with those who were taken in by him, but I do not sympathise with their entirely misplaced and soul-destroying bitterness. The world is a lot more complex place than people who chant mindless slogans, and blame others for their own lack of foresight, can admit to! Problems are deep rooted, and there are few simple solutions, and certainly none that don't require a bit of personal pain and effort. Feeding future generations thoughtless crap in order to perpetuate your own bitterness is about as mindless as it gets. It might make you feel better about yourself, but it doesn't help you, or anyone else - now or in the future. Oh, and I gave the video 5*. Not for its historical accuracy, or balance, but for capturing the nostalgia we all share.

I bet those side-by-side bikes were loved by politicos on holiday - they can steer in both directions at once! :blink:

I have, in my hand, these pieces of paper, and they bear the assurances from my ex-Nazi friends in the EU that following a Yes vote Scotland will enter a period of peace and prosperity. Peace and prosperity for our time!

Yes indeed, "WAKE UP ENGLAND" and "DOWN WITH THE GOVERNMENT"! Whoops, sorry, should have posted that on the http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/topic/3492-crash-2-the-sequel/ thread! Anyway, Lady Houston, Nige needs your massive cheque now! "Three million unemployed"? In your dreams Lord Clegghaw!

Just sometimes original (old) English spellings are preferred, as opposed to pretentious (and Germanic influenced) Victoriana. Our internal review on this matter will be completed in the Fall.

Poor lad indeed! Umm... Chronicle - try again on Attlee!

I was amused to see Facebook described as a "rapidly fading media now only used by old people". Obviously I'm way beyond "old" here as I rarely, if ever, bothered with it. I think the principal is that once commercialism cottons on to the possibilities the proposition rapidly fades. Anyone who invests in fashion industries like FB or Twitter (or Apple!) needs to time their exit better than I ever could hope to. The very forces which catapult them to mass usage rapidly kill them off. Hence not only am I Out, I wouldn't even dream of being In. Friends Reunited, MySpace, anyone?

What do you expect from a rag that is now owned by The Daily Mirror group? I guess it was written by some journo who'd never set foot in the town, and likely never will! Without other evidence I'd back the Leader, they probably even managed to spell Attlee right this time!

Background info: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/aviation/11033148/Two-Lancaster-bomber-planes-fly-together-for-first-time-in-50-years.html

Things could be moving faster than I reckoned: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/11032571/Italys-Renzi-must-bring-back-the-lira-to-end-depression.html But, then again, one should never underestimate the capacity of a Europhile to pig-headedly ignore reality. Anyway, logic says it's going to be a Friday night jobbie. After which can France be far behind? At which point you can safely say auf Wiedersehen to the entire "Euro experiment" - it really won't matter what Spain, Portugal etc. do. I hope it happens before next May, as that will lend further weight to what UKIP has been saying about the whole sorry state of the EU. Whenever, it's going to be very messy, and it really needn't have been, with even a modicum of foresight by the Euro politicos.

This is true. Banks don't lend like they do in the UK, for instance if you want a mortgage you can get maybe half the asking price and the rest you need to find from family resources or savings. Though what actually happens - in the countryside at least, and often in towns - is that you buy the building materials you can afford and build so much. This inflation proofs your money, and you can always sell on the incomplete project, or pass it on to the next generation. Hundreds of incomplete buildings is puzzling to Brits; they say just get a mortgage and finish the thing, not understanding that what they are looking at is not an unusable home, but inflation-proofed personal wealth that's almost beyond what politicians can screw up. In 2006 and shortly thereafter, I got entirely the wrong impression seeing hundreds of semi-abandoned small tracts of land in the countryside. It rather looked like a complete abandonment of land where you could grow things we really value in the UK. In fact the was great stuff growing wild you could just go help yourself to - Italians still do! But what I was seeing was the peak of the delusion that small agriculture was a thing of the past. Over the last few years things have completely changed and people have returned to the land. Not just the few eighty-odd year olds like before, but middle-aged people, bringing with them youngsters to help work the family plot. That's the most obvious testament to the disillusionment with the EU to me. It's easy to see where Bepe gets his 25%+ support from. There may be minor differences of emphasis from UKIP, but the ideas are broadly the same.

Reports of his death sadly not a rumour! Some really weird stuff published over the last few weeks if you do a trawl, but the truth could be a lot simpler: the personality that made him so interesting killed him?